A POLL for the Daily Record shows Scots would vote for independence if there is a hint that David Cameron will retain power with a Tory-led government in 2015.

A PUNTER walked into a betting shop in London yesterday and put £1000 on Ed Miliband becoming the next prime minister – and not at great odds.

That’s not the opening line of a lame political joke – the 44-year-old Labour leader is now 4-5 on to be in Downing Street next year.

Even though his personal ratings are negative, the fluctuating polls have his party four points ahead of the Conservatives.

But if there is a hint by September that David Cameron will retain power with a Tory-led government in 2015, it looks as if Scots may vote to leave the Union.

The latest poll for the Daily Record shows the referendum race tightening to 53 per cent No and 47 per cent Yes.

But asked how they would vote if they were certain Cameron was going to continue as Prime Minister, the result switches with 54 per cent saying Yes and 46 per cent No.

Other factors will be at play but Miliband has to look as if he will win the General Election to persuade many Scots that it’s worthwhile staying in the Union this autumn.

No pressure then, Ed.

The SNP want the referendum debate to be cast in terms of Scotland versus Tory England, hence the demands for a Salmond versus Cameron TV debate.

That conveniently forgets that large parts of England are Tory-free zones.

While Scotland prides itself with having two pandas and only one Tory MP, cities such as Liverpool and Manchester have no Tory councillors left (and no pandas either).

Anyone asking if Miliband can win in 2015 also has to look from the other end of the telescope and see the Tories have not won a general election since 1992.

The task facing Miliband is substantial. Rarely has a party gone from opposition to government after just one term.

Yet the challenge facing the Tories is even bigger – not since March 2012, ahead of the omnishambles budget, have they led in an opinion poll. And even in 2010, after the expenses scandal, the economic crash and a hugely unpopular prime minister in the shape of Gordon Brown, the Conservatives could not win outright.

Enter UKIP stage right and the Tory vote begins to fracture the way the Labour vote did when the Social Democrat Party came along in the 1980s.

Margaret Thatcher was not propelled into a second term on a great wave of acclaim but on the split in the left vote.

A similar split in the right could make Miliband the prime minister on a reduced share of the vote.

But Nigel Farage’s purple Kippers also represent a huge challenge to Labour if, as many warn, blue-collar workers abandon the party in favour of UKIP’s anti-EU, anti-immigration sentiments.

At the same time, though, Labour have scooped up the discontented Lib Dems disgusted at their leaders’ deal with the Tories.

If the Lib Dems sit up in their coffins before next May, Labour could be in trouble – but that’s highly unlikely.

The great unfinished business of the Coalition, redrawing constituency boundaries, also gives Labour an advantage.

Just 35 per cent of the vote would give Miliband a working majority, while Cameron would need to reach the high 30s or even 40 per cent to get a majority.

He entered Downing Street with 36 per cent of the vote and no one can see that increasing.

Labour strategists insist that 35 per cent is the basement not the ceiling of their ambition.

And while they are better placed for the ground war in marginal seats, they have a huge electoral drag anchor – and he is called Ed Miliband.

No party has ever won while trailing on both economic management and on leadership, and the Miliband and Ed Balls team lag behind Cameron and George Osborne on both.

So even if a Labour government looks like the most likely outcome right now, Miliband will have to persuade more than one punter in Putney to take a gamble on him.